shadow;
at the end is a bank, green and high, crowned by a hedge, and all at
once the quiet of the place has fled.

Such a variety of sounds come down the green bank! A cock is crowing
loudly, and there is the bleat of a young calf; pigs are squeaking one
against another, and in the midst of the din a dog begins to bark. At
the farther corner, where the hedge retreats from its encroachments on
the meadow, a grey house comes into view, with a signboard across its
upper part announcing that here the tired traveller may get dinner and a
bed.

Before the cock has done crowing--and really he goes on so long that it
is a wonder he is not hoarse--another voice mingles with the rest.

It is a woman's voice, and, although neither hoarse nor shrill, it is no
more musical than the crow of the other biped, who struts about on his
widely-spread toes in the yard, to which Christina Fasch has come to
feed the pigs. There are five of them, pink-nosed and yellow-coated, and
they keep up a grunting and snarling chorus within their wooden
enclosure, each struggling to oust a neighbour from his place near the
trough while they all greedily await their food.

[Sidenote: "Come, Anna!"]

"Come, Anna, come," says the hard voice; "what a slow coach you are! I
would do a thing three times over while you are thinking about it!"

* * * * *

The farmyard was bordered by the tall hedge, and lay between it and the
inn. The cow-house, on one side, was separated from the pigstyes by a
big stack of yellow logs, and the farther corner of the inn was flanked
by another stack of split wood, fronted by a pile of brushwood; above
was a wooden balcony that ran also along the house-front, and was
sheltered by the far-projecting eaves of the shingled roof.

Only the upper part of the inn was built of logs, the rest was brick and
plaster. The house looked neatly kept, the yard was less full of the
stray wood and litter that is so usual in a Swiss farmyard, but there
was a dull, severe air about the place. There was not a flower or a
plant, either in the balcony or on the broad wooden shelves below the
windows--not so much as a carnation or a marigold in the vegetable plot
behind the house.

A shed stood in the corner of this plot, and at the sound of Christina's
call a girl came out of the shed; she was young and tall and
strong-looking, but she did not beautify the scene.

To begin with, she stooped; her rough, tangled